3D Thursday: sometimes it isn’t rude to point

This is a WIP post. This week I enjoyed reading the results of a couple of Pinterest projects from gillyflower over at Wood So Wild (very cool blog). It is so useful when a ‘real’ person attempts some of these things and lets you know the outcome. I really liked how her sea glass turned out!

As of this morning I had a big fat nothing prepared for 3D Thursday so no post, or a quick project was the order of the day. Nothing like a deadline to sharpen the mind! Then I remembered that a while ago, whilst Pinterbinge-ing (as in looking at Pinterest for way longer than is healthy) I came across a link showing how to make a five-pointed origami star. Hurrah! So gillyflower is my inspiration today and I am very grateful!

I did my searches and found the site here. I watched both the videos – one to make a pentagon and one to make the star, then went for it with a sheet of copier paper to practice. This is the first star I made.

Not bad, huh? Of course I had to pause the videos several times to catch up: I haven’t done much origami since I was a kid and am a bit rusty. But don’t worry, you definitely do not need a black belt in origami to do this.

Once I had made the initial pentagon shape I was a bit concerned about all the random score lines, but most of them became integral to the star shape. If I was doing a lot of these stars I would probably make some pentagon templates to save a bit of time, but to just get a couple done whilst there was still some daylight available, and in case we get yet another power cut, it was as quick to make them from scratch.

The papers I used are single-sided. Initially I was looking for double-sided as per the website but once I watched the videos I realised you only see one side anyway. Mine are good quality 12 x 12 inch K&Company that my sister bought for me when I started card making. I love them so much I use them sparingly! Actually the quality probably made the folding a bit trickier, so you definitely want to use paper weight only. The end result is better with the quality paper though, so it is swings and roundabouts!

The trickiest bit I found was the very last fold, but it just needs a bit of finagling and you are fine.

I had just enough time to get some of my lovely Martha Stewart Smoky Quartz glitter on the edges of one star and take a couple of photos. I was trying to catch the glitter in the sunlight, but no luck. You will just have to believe me when I tell you it looks not too shabby at all.

So, I made three stars, they all worked, and by the time I was making star three I had most of the fold sequence in my head and could (almost) do it as quick as the demo chap. So it is easy, believe me!

I said at the top they are a WIP, because of course you could add all sorts of things to them. I have an urge for jingle bells on the points. Maybe I am just getting confused with jesters’ hats?

 

3D Thursday: It’s Shakespeare, Jim, but not as we know it…

Sorry Trekkies….

Last year on Pinterest I saw lots of Christmas ornaments with a honeycomb paper look. Now, I can just about remember from childhood many Christmas ornaments being made from honeycomb paper. They would be something like a bell, or a tree, probably about a foot long. They would be multicoloured, and be able to open for the festivities and fold closed again to store for next year. The honeycomb effect would be quite elaborate too. The ornaments I saw on Pinterest were handmade, and therefore much less elaborate, but really appealed. Also many were made with book pages. I wanted to try it last year but never had the time. I know some people feel that books should not be cut up, or cut into, but I feel differently. I love books. I love to read them, flick through them, even pile up old interesting looking ones simply for decoration. But I also just like the look of the text and the feel of the pages, so using them as a craft material is fine, for me. Otherwise these books are sitting alone and unloved in a charity or second-hand shop somewhere. Where is the glory or dignity in that? If you feel differently, it’s ok, just look away now and come back another day maybe?!

Still here? OK. So, yesterday I watched various YouTube clips to see how to make the honeycomb paper effect. Then armed with some knowledge I waded on in. The method I came up with was a bit of a mixture of the videos I watched. Isn’t that often the way? If anyone wants to know specifics just let me know in a comment and I will put something together, but really if you fancy having a go there are plenty of tutorials already available.

I used an old book of Shakespeare plays. Probably just a twisted amusement at making something which vaguely resembles an Elizabethan ruff from The Bard’s works. Or shall I pretend it is in homage?! But for the record I don’t actually see Shakespeare’s visage in honeycomb paper, or on my toast, like some people do…

As I said, I won’t go into masses of detail, but basically you cut your shapes, fold them in half and then stick them together one on top of the other, but alternating the sticking points. Really, seriously, I can try to explain this more but other people have already done it way better so I won’t. YouTube is great for this!

Once you have your basic shape done, again you have choices for the hanging loop and decoration at the bottom. Or at least you would have choices if you were a crafter with a selection of beads to hand. I am not, so ended up using a snowflake charm that was free with a magazine about a million years ago.

I wanted more bling. I wanted those pages GLITTERED! A rifle through my glitter stash and I plumped for Smoky Quartz by Martha Stewart. It is an old-fashioned kind of colour, exactly what I had in mind. So late last night I was sitting painting diluted pva glue onto the edges of the pages and then liberally sprinkling with glitter. Some pages are a bit more glittery than I would like, but too late now. Next time I will do the job in better light. I also decided I loved the glitter so much that I added it to some simple die cut holly leaves too and stuck these at the top of the ornament.

 

What I learned from this first one is that it is worth taking some time to work out the position of your fixing points. This ornament could have looked better with a different choice I think, but now I know.

Also, glue dots seemed to be the weapon of choice for a lot of the YouTube-ers, but I gave up on them pretty quick. You simply cannot easily see where you are putting them because of the carrier paper. I just used a sticky tape runner and it worked fine.

I know you would have to be very careful about where you placed a decoration like this but I do find them interesting to look at. Again this is another project that you absolutely could replicate without a die or die cutter. Just draw half a simple ornament shape, cut it out, draw around it on your already folded book pages and you are good to go.

 

The die I used was the largest from Spellbinders 2010 Heirloom Ornaments

 

3D Thursday: Gilty pleasures

I have been playing with the Christmas ornament ‘blanks’ my sister made again. I previously posted a WIP, which I think I may have now ruined. More of that in another post perhaps. However, this is bauble number two. Just to explain I will be freely switching from using ‘bauble’ to ‘ornament’ and back again, partially so I make sense to the majority of those I know read my blog. Also, whilst a big fan of the English language and a stalwart supporter of using a wide vocabulary, I HATE the word bauble. It sounds vaguely anatomical, like an appendage or a minor organ, maybe something that is prone to swelling and bursting, akin to the appendix. Got an attack of bauble bursitis. Ouch!

Anyway, enough of the inside of my head for now. Here we have ornament number two. I started off by covering it with IndigoBlu gilding flakes in Winter Dawn. Can I say that this is not an endeavour which should be undertaken lightly. There was A LOT of mess, and most of it was stuck to me. I tried to keep one hand ‘clean’ and one hand sticky but it was just not possible. By the time the whole bauble was covered, at least 40% of the surface of my hands was too. Then the cat came along and somehow got a large gilding flake on his nose. Some comedy hissing and ‘pffing’ ensued. Him, not me. Obviously I did not want him to ingest it. I was pretty sure the manufacturers would not have thought it necessary to include any details about whether it was safe for cats to eat. In all fairness, they should not be expected to! So I attempted a pre-emptive snatch and grab (still with my heavily gilded fingers), which of course Riley (cat in residence) eluded. But I couldn’t assume the large flake was not stuck to him – the state of my own paws were evidence this was a definite possibility. So, the chase was on.

Anyone own a cat? Anyone know that a lot of them don’t like tin foil (maybe called kitchen or baking foil too)? Yep, Riley is one of them. I always thought it was the noise the foil made but, seeing me approaching with hands that have suddenly become reflective from all the silver gilding flakes and glue (believe me, it is good glue ‘cos everything stuck fast), well he was either genuinely freaked or just decided it was a good opportunity for a game. After haring up and down stairs chasing him a few times I was satisfied that he was a gilding flake-free zone. I, however, had added a couple of interesting hand prints to the banisters. Oh joy, I thought.

Back to the bauble. The reason I was all glued up was mostly because I was trying to cover a round object; so, holding it, applying the glue to an area and then turning it meant I just. Got. Sticky. I could have done smaller areas at a time, but I was rushing; and maybe latex gloves might have been sensible, but hey, we learn by our mistakes. It was user error, not the fault of the product. You can’t blame a good glue for being good! Once the ornament was all flaked up I just went in with the sponge and gave it a buffing to remove the loose or partially stuck flakes. This is when you can really see the results of your efforts. So, the orb was now covered and the next stage had been inspired by my thoughts on the handprint on the banisters, which in a way was serendipity, or payback, whichever way your mind works. I had an Anna Griffin ’joy’ die which I dug out, cut from gold card and then covered in Martha Stewart Copper glitter, to match the hanging loop. If anyone is wondering ‘why gold card?‘, the answer is that I don’t have any copper coloured, and if you want a coloured glitter to show up really well, stick it onto something which is as close a colour match as you can get. If you put it on white it just doesn’t pop in the same way and black can change the colour quite radically. I tied two fairly extravagant bows of double-faced satin ribbon, and glued them to the top of the ornament so it looks nice from both sides. Then added the copper sparkly ’joy’ and job done.

Photo taking was a bit of an adventure. It is really not easy to do a bauble justice if you don’t have a tree to hang it on! I held it in the sunlight (I know, sunlight in the UK in November. Put it in your diary!) to show how sparkly the copper glitter is.

I also wanted to hang it though, so rigged up a makeshift hook from a silver pipe cleaner, pegged some black card to the curtain and hoped for the best. Here is the ‘warts and all’ zoomed out shot!

I bought these gilding flakes quite some time ago now and I haven’t used them nearly enough. You can use stamps with the Flitterglu or like I did here, cover a whole area. The tubs of flakes are in single colours or several different colour combinations, some warm coppers, rose and gold and some cool greens and silver with slivers of gold or copper too. All are luscious. Please excuse me, I gotta go gild something. Where are the gloves?